How To Develop Cloud Applications Using Java?

Cloud development is trending and every industry vertical involved in digital operations wants to shift to the cloud. If you are a Java developer, you must not overlook this trend as this will become the mainstay of almost all organizations across the world. In this blog, we will discuss the ways of Java cloud application development. 

Cloud Computing- A Brief Overview

In general, the term “cloud” refers to the platforms that are utilized for distributed computing. Also known as on-demand computing, it leverages the internet to compute by utilizing the shared processing resources. 

For instance, when you are searching for something on the internet or checking your emails, you are actually benefiting from cloud computing. The requests like these are processed remotely using cloud technology and are not even known to the users.

These are the 5 main characteristics of cloud:

1. Broad Network Access
2. Measured Service
3. Resource pooling
4. On-demand Capabilities
5. Rapid Elasticity

Java Cloud Application Development Tools

AWS SDK

Amazon has all the requisite tools, documentation, and sample codes that one needs to develop a scalable, secure, and reliable Java app. For instance, the programmers using Eclipse Java IDE can start with the SDK from the AWS Toolkit for Eclipse. It is basically a plug-in for the IDE that facilitates the development, deployment and debugging of Java apps, using the Amazon Web Services. 

Oracle Java Cloud Service

This is a part of the platform services that are offered by Oracle Cloud. With the help of Oracle Java Cloud Service, the Oracle WebLogic Server domain can be configured which will eventually aid in setting up the Java EE application environment. 

All of the Oracle Java Cloud Server instances that are created are pre-configured in a way that can utilize your instance in Oracle Database Cloud along with the object storage container that is created in the Oracle Storage Cloud Service.

A Java cloud developer has the option to choose environments while he/she creates an Oracle Java Cloud Service instance. The environments are designed for robust availability requirements like staging & production, user acceptance testing, or development & testing. 

Oracle Java Cloud Service

It is pretty simple to create, maintain, scale applications with Google App Engine. The application adapts itself simultaneously with the change in data storage & traffic requirements. 

Standard Java cloud apps can be easily deployed in App Engine by using the Servlets/Server code. The code listens to a port and the App Engine apps scale automatically with an increase in the incoming traffic. Microservices, SQL & NoSQL databases, load balancing, authorization, versioning, traffic splitting, etc are supported natively and can be customized as per requirement.

These are what you require to successfully run an application on App Engine:

1. A pom.xml file is required that chalks out the package dependencies of the app.
2. An app.yaml file is needed. It describes the runtime configuration of the application(maximum & minimum instances, CPU & RAM configurations required)
3. The Java application code

Heroku & Java

A managed container system based PaaS platform that comes integrated with a robust ecosystem and data services, Heroku is used to deploy & execute modern apps. It adheres to an app-centric approach coupled with modern developer tools and workflows for software delivery.

Heroku lends support to many programming languages including Java. With Heroku, Java apps can be scaled and deployed easily in the cloud. Standard libraries with app servers like Jetty or Tomcat as well as frameworks like Play/Spring are supported. Heroku allows the Java cloud developers to freely build things the way they want using the tools they love.

Jelastic

Jelastic is an acronym used for Java Elastic. Providing a high availability of apps with automatic horizontal & vertical scaling, it is an infinite PaaS & container-based Iaas merged within a single platform. Not only Jelastic has the key elements of IaaS but also it includes all the features of an advanced PaaS. It is widely utilized to host service providers across the world & is benefiting the enterprises by providing a top-notch turnkey cloud environment. It is cheap and the service can be availed at a much lower cost than the existing virtualization solutions.

Jelastic doesn’t have code change requirements/constraints. With automated app lifecycle management & vertical scaling along with its availability from several worldwide hosting providers, Jelastic supports Eclipse & IntelliJ IDEA through plugins.

During Java cloud application development, keep these pointers in mind:

Data Access Object

As you are transferring the data around, be careful with the amount of data you transfer. It is best to give the minimum data as required.

Remote Facade

With the majority of the API calls taking place through networks, the response time is greatly dependent on network latency. With the Remote Facade pattern, the developers must strive to create a coarse-grained API that reduces the number of calls.

In easy terms, it is always better to visit a shop and buy 100 things in one go rather than visiting the shop 100 times to buy 1 thing at a time!

Check Each Component Before Deploying

It can be tricky to detect the faulty part of the app if something goes wrong due to the very nature of distributed computing. Ensure to implement health check, debug modes, pings, thorough loggings, to each component in the system.

Stateless

All the services and servers must be stateless. If any service requires user data, it must be included as a parameter in the API. To implement a stateless session, these are the options to consider:

• Database Session
• Distributed Cache session 
• Cookie-based session

Idempotence

A majority of the API calls happen through networks instead of internal method calls in a cloud application. Thus, the safer the method calls are made, the better it is. If you are adhering to the Stateless principle, the services implemented are very likely to be idempotent.

End Note:

Let’s hope that this blog has elaborated your knowledge regarding the development of cloud applications with Java. As a platform-independent & portable programming language, Java has established itself as a prime contender to be deployed in cloud-based applications. If you are looking to develop such highly optimized applications, you can consult the best experts from the Ksolves team.

Contact Us for any Query

Email : sales@ksolves.com

Call : +91 8130704295

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